Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians: CLT20 Final Preview

Dreams sometimes come true for all, from the men in the street to the fattening middle class, and then the kings in their castles counting their mansions full of riches. For the cricket crazy masses of India, the CLT20 final between two teams from the IPL is a dream come true, for the match is a classic battle of batting vs bowling and is expected to be a cracker.

One team resembles a murderer’s row for its frighteningly powerful batting line-up, which is Royal Challengers Bangalore. The other is Mumbai Indians, which is more balanced side with great strength in bowling. Now it’s time to dissect both teams ahead of the CLT20 final.

ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE

BATTING:

Devastating duo: Gayle and Kohli

If you are a bowler and thinking of bowling to this team in T20, you are most likely to feign a tight hamstring so as to not endure a slaughter at the hands of Gayle and co. If the team bowling to Bangalore is a weak bowling unit, chances are that they will get smashed for well beyond 300 runs where balls will be consistently flying out of the park! Such is the might of the RCB batting.

Their frightening batting might is shown by the figures in the tournament so far. Of the six scores of 200+ reached in this tournament, Bangalore own 3 including the top score of 215. In terms of individual batting records, both Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli occupy places in the top four in the list of maximum runs made. Both batsmen boast averages over 50 and strike rates well over 155 (Kohli- 157.85 and Chris Gayle-190.90)

While Gayle and Kohli have certainly hogged the limelight to the maximum with their explosive strike rates, they are not the lone batting stars for Bangalore who can hit balls out of the park. Take a look at the following stats.

Tillakaratne Dilshan: 4 innings, 119 runs, strike rate 127.95

Saurabh Tiwary: 5 innings, strike rate 132.14

Daniel Vettori: 4 innings, 61 runs, strike rate 169.44

So, even if Chris Gayle, who has been the arch batsman of RCB this tournament in ripping apart bowlers and consistently hitting balls out of the park, falls early, there are plenty of others to insure a Bangalore carnage with the bat.

BOWLING:

While the batting of the Royal Challengers is top class, their bowling is exactly a mirror image of their main strength; just shockingly bad. In truth, you can see that the main premise of the team is that they recognize that their bowling is terrible and thus aim to back their batting to score more than any side in a chase. Or conversely to devastate the opponent with a total if they bat first that will mentally destroy the opposition.

While it is good in theory, it is not a wise practice, for even in this incarnation of cricket that is so dominated by the bat, a team’s bowling must be reasonably strong.

The team’s pacemen are Dirk Nannes and Sreenath Aravind. Firstly on Nannes. For a bowler that has had a proud reputation in T20 cricket, he has been shockingly bad in this tournament. Inaccurate to the extreme and showing little or no threat from a wicket taking perspective, Nannes has been a disappointment.

As far as Aravind is concerned, there have been vocal discussions doing rounds that suggest that the decision to pick him for the upcoming ODI series against England may have been a blunder, for the youngster has been very poor this tournament.

The spin duo in support are the crafty old Daniel Vettori and Tillakaratne Dilshan, who have shown in the past in shorter forms of cricket that they are capable of being economical as well as taking wickets. If Bangalore can lift their bowling, they will stand a huge chance of winning the final. Else, it is likely that the match could end in Mumbai winning in a canter. MUMBAI INDIANS:

BATTING:

The batting of Mumbai Indians is a pale shadow of that of Bangalore. The second finalist have been a more sedate bunch with the bat as opposed to their opponents who have been malevolent maulers.

Only Kieron Pollard is the type in the line up capable of giving bowlers cold sweats, and even he, with a tournament strike rate of 130.1, has been disappointing by the high standards he has set by several bravura performances such as in the World Cup.

Mumbai will be relying on a player at the top of their line up, Aiden Blizzard, to deliver on his devastating reputation with the bat in T20. Blizzard, in his 45 game T20 career, has a strike rate of 144.58, and is thus Mumbai’s batting trump card. If he can give the team a strong start, the batting can become more formidable with the other players being able to perform with less pressure.

This will also give the team an option of fully utilising Pollard’s potential and have him come in further up the order to capitalise on the strong start and devastate Bangalore, for he has the pedigree of playing a match winning knock. BOWLING:

The Slinger: Mumbai's danger man

Mumbai boats the best bowling unit in the tournament, which has been shown by how opposition batting line ups have crumbled against them. Only 508 runs have been scored against them at an average of 126.75 per innings.

Mumbai are commandeered by the best bowler in the tournament, Lasith Malinga whose record stands thus: 4 innings, 8 wickets, average 11.75, strike rate 12, economy rate 5.87

The rest of the bowling unit consists of Harbhajan Singh, Kieron Pollard, James Frankly and Abu Nechim. The highest average of the four is 26.00 and most expensive strike rate is 7.39, thus making Mumbai a ruthlessly difficult bowling unit to score off. PREDICTION:

Since Mumbai are a more complete team, my money is on them to prevail. While Bangalore have an explosive batting line-up, Mumbai’s bowling is best placed to neutralise it, which should make this an enthralling contest.

If Mumbai can keep the RCB batting under control, the thread bare Bangalore bowling will be woefully exposed and duly victimised by the Indians.

Edited by Zico